Surviving the Game as a Zombie - Chapter 99

Tang Yu was certain she didn’t know Qi Jinyin; this was their first time meeting.

But why could the other person call out her name so accurately?

Tang Yu felt her scalp tingle as a jolt of electricity seemed to flash through her mind. Something was wrong. Something must have gone terribly wrong somewhere.

Jin Ye also gathered around in disbelief. She asked Tang Yu, “Do you know her?”

“I don’t,” Tang Yu said, shaking her head and backing away. Not only did she not know her, but she also had no memory of the name or the face.

Qi Jinyin released her grip on Tang Yu’s hand and fell unconscious again.

“Could it be that you don’t remember?” Xiao Li said. “You have amnesia, right? Maybe it’s someone you knew back in the interstellar age.”

Tang Yu frowned. From her perspective, that possibility couldn’t be ruled out. But, did her real face actually look like this?

Tang Yu was filled with doubt and uncertainty, but it was difficult for Qi Jinyin to respond in her current state. They could only wait patiently.

Jian Che went to the factory building to get some purified water, then finished preparing the meal and served it to the others. To be honest, Jian Che’s cooking skills weren’t very good. The food was mostly just heated canned goods—edible, but certainly not delicious.

While Qi Jinyin was unconscious, Tang Yu and Jin Ye explored the factory building. Zhang Teng’s trio had stockpiled a lot of supplies, mostly food. It was a mystery how they’d gotten lucky enough to find so many good things. However, Tang Yu and her group didn’t smoke or drink, so those items would have to be used for other purposes. The cola and canned food, on the other hand, were great finds.

It was only after this tour that Tang Yu understood why Qi Jinyin had built a shack outside. The factory building was filled with large machinery, much of it used for compacting or dissolving scrap metal. Some of these machines used chemical and biological processes and were inherently toxic. It wasn’t safe for people to stay inside the building for long periods; only someone like Zhang Teng would have lived in the factory when he first arrived.

Tang Yu took a moment to check the ability she had copied. Its name was “Rapid Healing.” It had almost no significant side effects, except that the healing process consumed stamina. The more severe the injury, the more stamina it consumed. If her stamina was completely depleted, the ability would be useless.

When they returned to the shack, Qi Jinyin was already awake, with Jian Che feeding her water from a spoon.

Tang Yu paused at the entrance to the shack. Everything had happened so suddenly. If Qi Jinyin truly was an acquaintance from her interstellar days who knew things about her past, she had to be mentally prepared to accept it.

Sensing someone approaching the entrance, Qi Jinyin tilted her head to one side and asked, “Is that Tang Yu?” After a drink of water, her voice was less hoarse, and her condition had improved significantly.

Tang Yu slowly walked to the bedside. “You know me? How?”

Qi Jinyin sighed in relief. “It really is you… This feels so strange. I can actually communicate with you now.”

Tang Yu sensed something was off. What did she mean? Was she a mute in the interstellar age as well?

Only then did Qi Jinyin remember to answer Tang Yu’s question. “We lived together for a while, about seven or eight months ago? Right here in Xinzhou. But it seems you don’t remember.”

“Wait.” Tang Yu pressed her temples. Xinzhou. That meant Qi Jinyin wasn’t an acquaintance from the interstellar age, but someone she had met inside the game.

But seven or eight months ago, she hadn’t even entered the game yet!

From the time she woke up to the present, it had been about four months at most.

Tang Yu’s head shot up. In other words, this wasn’t her first time playing this game?

“I have no memory of any of this. Could you please tell me in detail about what happened before?” Tang Yu crouched down, her expression serious as she leaned closer to the bed.

Qi Jinyin took a breath. “It was at the beginning of last winter, I believe. I was passing through Xinzhou and saw you at an intersection. You were standing right in the middle of the main road, wearing only a single layer of clothing.”

Qi Jinyin paused to rest after each sentence. Xiao Li found two painkillers and helped her take them with some water.

“You know that when players see a zombie, their first instinct is to attack, so I had already aimed at you. But you were very perceptive and spotted me. You even ignored my bow and arrow and walked straight toward me.”

“I thought at the time, ‘This zombie is too strange,’ so I hesitated.”

“You were a bit different back then compared to how you are now.” Qi Jinyin lay back on the bed and glanced at Tang Yu. “Back then, you were more… how should I put it? More confident and composed. Your gaze was also incredibly sharp, as if you could see right through me and knew I wouldn’t attack.”

Tang Yu asked, “Did I look the same back then as I do now?”

Qi Jinyin found the question a bit strange, but she answered nonetheless, “Exactly the same. Your face and figure are identical, which is why I recognized you.”

She paused, and seeing that Tang Yu wasn’t asking anything else, she continued, “When you were about ten steps away from me, you stopped, picked up a piece of rubble, and started writing on the ground.”

“You asked me where this was, if there was anything to eat, and you even used the word ‘please.’ I knew right then that you weren’t an ordinary zombie. I thought you were quite polite, so I shared some food with you and gave you some clothes. And just like that, we were acquainted.”

Tang Yu listened in silence. The information Qi Jinyin provided was incredibly impactful. It meant she had been in the game before, also as a zombie, and without amnesia. To be able to calmly converse with an enemy… with her mind a blank slate, she couldn’t have managed such a composed act.

For instance, when she woke up in A-City this time, she had been completely unable to handle her situation calmly.

Then again, it seemed Qi Jinyin didn’t just pick up NPCs and players; she even picked up zombies.

Qi Jinyin rested for a moment before continuing, “Back then, Xinzhou happened to be under a zombie siege. The zombies were tougher to deal with than they are now, and there were far more of them. You’d get surrounded after just a few steps. That’s how I discovered your combat skills were incredibly strong, though your stamina was a bit lacking. If I had shot that arrow and started a fight, I’m not sure I would have won.”

“After that, we traveled together and set up camp in the Xinzhou library. There was plenty of paper and pens there, so communication wasn’t a problem.”

“But you were quite the troublemaker, always thinking up strange things to do every day. You explored every corner of the library, for instance. Sometimes you’d stare at the bathroom mirror for an entire day, muttering to yourself. You also used all sorts of bizarre methods to kill zombies and other players. When I asked what you were doing, you said you were looking for game bugs.”

Tang Yu’s heart skipped a beat. Was that something she would do?

“I don’t know if you ever found one. In any case, we had been there for less than two weeks when you vanished into thin air, leaving no trace, as if you’d just evaporated. I thought you might have died or been captured by players, but with no body, there was still a sliver of hope. That’s why I stayed in Xinzhou, thinking that if you ever came back, you’d be able to find me.”

Tang Yu’s heart raced, her mind spinning. She probably hadn’t died; she had been abducted by the game.

Two weeks. Chronologically, there was still a gap of a month or two before she woke up this time. Perhaps she had even “lived” once more in between.

Perhaps she really had found a bug and was forcibly extracted from the game, or taken somewhere else.

Tang Yu suddenly recalled the sentence she had heard in a daze when she woke up this time.

It was a mechanical voice, warning her to cooperate with the arrangements—and it had warned her more than once.

In that case, being turned into a zombie was because she had committed some offense. The amnesia, however, wasn’t there from the start; it was likely a punishment for her rebelliousness.

Tang Yu eagerly asked Qi Jinyin, “By the way, did I ever tell you anything about the world outside the game back then?”

Qi Jinyin thought for a long moment before answering hesitantly, “I think you mentioned it in passing, but not in detail. I just remember one time when I was injured, you said there was an interstellar monster called a Qize whose bl00d could heal wounds, but that thing was very hard to kill. I figured you must have been something like an interstellar hunter.”

“Mm,” Tang Yu acknowledged. She already knew about this; she and Lu Lu had discussed these things when they met before.

“Oh, right.” Qi Jinyin recalled something else. “But you were also very familiar with the Capital Star. You mentioned having lived there for a period of time.”

Qi Jinyin seemed to recall something amusing. “Once, I casually complained that the gate of the Interstellar General Administration was too ugly, that the stone monument at the entrance looked like a martyr’s memorial from ground level. You wrote that it used to be even uglier, like an upright bug, exactly like the cockroaches you only see in this game. When I thought about it carefully, it was true… Come to think of it, they replaced that monument a long time ago.”

Ah.

For a moment, Tang Yu didn’t know where to begin her critique. The Capital Star’s aesthetic sense was truly awful.

In other words, she was familiar with the Capital Star. That was strange. Lu Lu and Jin Ye had mentioned before that people from the fringe planets usually didn’t have much interaction with the Capital Star, and there were entry regulations for each planet. As an interstellar hunter from the lower rungs of society, how could she possibly have lived on the Capital Star?

Jin Ye crossed her arms, a look of confusion on her face. “Replacing the monument… that was over ten star-years ago. The General Administration had a major personnel shake-up back then. By that count, wouldn’t Tang Yu have been just a child?”

Tang Yu tilted her head back and blinked. “So, you’re saying I might be a fallen princess?”

“In your dreams.”

“Is there anything else?” Tang Yu turned her head to ask Qi Jinyin.

“…Probably not.” She couldn’t recall much else at the moment. Their interactions had been limited and mostly game-related. Tang Yu had never proactively brought up matters from outside the game; only when the conversation happened to drift in that direction would she write a sentence or two.

It seemed that Tang Yu and Qi Jinyin had gotten along quite well back then. Qi Jinyin didn’t seem tired even after saying so much; she appeared to be reminiscing fondly about that period.

“How are you doing now? Did something happen to you afterward?” Qi Jinyin finally asked about Tang Yu.

Tang Yu realized that although Qi Jinyin had a bit of a savior complex, she was very considerate when interacting with others. Tang Yu thought for a moment and gave a wry smile. “As you can see, I’m a Zombie King now. I have my own camp and a group of good teammates. All in all, it’s not too bad.”

Qi Jinyin smiled in relief. “So the D-Class Zombie King was you. That’s great. I always thought you looked like someone destined for great things.”

Her words made Tang Yu feel a little embarrassed.

Xiao Li seized the opportunity. “Huh? Did you just mention our camp?” Although Xiao Li couldn’t understand Qi Jinyin, she had understood Tang Yu.

She immediately put on a professional smile. “Qi Jie, would you like to join our camp? We provide food, shelter, and medicine! With an injury like yours, if you come to our camp to recuperate, I guarantee you’ll be fine!”

Qi Jinyin was much easier to recruit than Jian Che. She didn’t refuse, giving a slight nod before looking at Jian Che, who was sitting by the bed. “Can she come too?”

Tang Yu nodded. “Yes, you can both come. We have other NPCs there, including a girl around her age.”

“That would be wonderful… Sigh, if only the other people in this scrapyard were still alive.” Qi Jinyin sounded regretful. Some of the people she rescued would stay with her, while others would leave on their own. Most who stayed were NPCs with no particular skills. This place wasn’t so much a camp as a shelter, but her abilities were limited, and in the end, she hadn’t been able to protect those she’d saved.

While Tang Yu and Qi Jinyin were talking, Jian Che sat silently beside them. She knew they must be discussing something important, and even though she couldn’t understand, she never once made a sound to interrupt. Only when Qi Jinyin’s gaze turned to her did she look up, blink, and ask, “Were you talking about me?”

Xiao Li nodded. “Mhm, your Qi Jie has joined our camp, and you’re coming with us too.”

“Oh, I see… Okay, then.”

Tang Yu operated her wrist device, first entering Jian Che’s name and then adding Qi Jinyin to the camp as well.

After finishing this, Tang Yu suddenly remembered something. “How did you get injured? This doesn’t look like a wound from a knife or a gun.”

Qi Jinyin closed her eyes and sighed. “The library. A group of players is stationed there, and one of them can control metal.”

Metal control? The image of Li Luo flashed through Tang Yu’s mind, but she couldn’t reconcile the act of injuring someone with her. Although she disliked Li Luo, she didn’t believe she would harm an NPC and a player who was coming to the rescue.

“Three days ago, I was passing by and saw a woman arguing with a player. The woman was pushed to the ground. Based on her physique, she was probably an NPC. An NPC is no match for a player, so I went over to say a few words to mediate. But the player got agitated and chased me halfway down the street, attacking me.”

Three days ago. Tang Yu did the math. They had encountered Li Luo on the highway two days ago, and that highway was in a completely different direction within Xinzhou. No matter how she thought about it, the person who had long been stationed at the library couldn’t have been Li Luo.

“Male or female?” Tang Yu confirmed.

“Male.”

“What was the weapon that stabbed you?”

“The boom barrier from a guard post.”

Tang Yu frowned. If she understood correctly, a boom barrier was a blunt metal object. It would cause a bruise at worst, not pierce through flesh and skin.

So she ventured a guess: “He can change the shape of metal?”

“Mhm, like crumpling a soda can.”

Metal control was a very potent ability; used properly, it could be incredibly powerful. For example, with enough agility, Tang Yu’s Startling Dragon could not only be used for close-quarters combat and ranged attacks but could even alter the trajectory of bullets.

The ability Li Luo had used in the restricted area didn’t seem like metal control. She hadn’t changed the shape of any objects, and many of the surgical tables weren’t even made of iron. It was more likely an ability related to telekinesis.

In other words, there were other people with abilities in Xinzhou.

The more Tang Yu thought about it, the more alarmed she became. She hadn’t expected to run into so many powerful individuals on a single trip to Nan Province.

Then, an even more terrifying thought occurred to her. She shot to her feet and asked, “Does that man know you’re based in the scrapyard? Has anyone come looking for you recently?”

Qi Jinyin was startled. “N-no. I don’t think he knows. This place is quite a distance from the library.”

“Then how did you get back?”

“Xiao Jian went out to find me.”

Tang Yu felt a little more at ease. Perhaps she was overthinking things.

This scrapyard was full of metal objects. If that man suddenly came looking for them, none of them would be able to escape.